For years, Seattle has been ranked as one of the fastest growing large cities in the US. This growth has presented challenges to maintain livability standards, especially when it comes to the need for increased urban density. While demolition and construction are ways to address this issue, many citizens react negatively to the changing fabric of their neighborhood—regardless of potential benefits. Studies in community and environmental psychology show that the earlier citizens are brought into the development process, the likelier they are to view the proposed project as a positive change. Currently, the city of Seattle’s “Design Review” program allows citizens to do just that—but some find it confusing, time consuming, or simply don’t know that it exists. This project tracked the steps in the current process and identified opportunities to better engage the public in the development and construction of future multi-family and commercial buildings.

Initial PlanAs part of the initial process, an infographic was made to outline the idea, initial research, projected goals, and scope of the project.

Video StillsAs part of the final process, I storyboarded, shot, and edited a short video which illustrated the "golden path" of a typical interaction with 'Common Ground.'

Interface FunctionsThese images illustrate, by row, some of the main functions of the application portion of the thesis project. Beginning from the first row, the app is differentiated from other city planning tools in that it has proggresive disclosure built into the process of the city's design review process. It also tags and alerts users to aggregated keywords from other participants which are trending for the project, and allows you to directly converse with the city and developers about concerns and questions.

UW MFA Henry ExhibitAs An exhibition was created to inform the public about the project. I chose to include a brief explanation of the overall project, a video illustrating the "golden path" of a typical user, a graphic 3 dimentional map of the geographical area of focus, and the 5 main areas of differention that my project addressed in comparison to others with similarities: alert, educate, collaborate, implement, and archive.